Laporte-Altrad trial: firm prison required against barons of French rugby

accusing them of having sealed a “corruptive pact”, the national financial prosecutor’s office claimed on Tuesday a sentence of three years in prison, including a farm, against the president of the French federation, Bernard Laporte, and the owner from the Montpellier club, Mohed Altrad.

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The pinched lips, looking straight ahead, Bernard Laporte did not flinch when the financial prosecutor François-Xavier DULIN called for a “heavy” sentence of three years in prison, including a farm, and a fine of 50,000 euros against him. It was then nearly 6 p.m. Tuesday, September 20, and the president of the French Rugby Federation (FFR) had just taken the shattering requisitions of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) on the eighth day of his trial for “illegal taking of Interest “,” Traffic of passive influence by a public agent “,” passive corruption by a public agent “,” concealment of abuse of corporate goods “,” breach of trust “and” abuse of social goods “.

In front of the 32 e Chamber of the Paris Criminal Court, a similar prison sentence and a fine of 200,000 euros were required, in his absence, against the billionaire Mohed Altrad, owner of the club de Montpellier and sponsor of the XV of France jersey. “Far from questioning itself, the defendants have, by their sustainable action, deeply damaged the probity which surrounds French rugby,” said Mr. Dulin, who asked against the two barons of the tricolor oval a “prohibition with Immediate execution to exercise any function in rugby for two years. “

At the end of four years of investigation, the PNF magistrates denounced, before the Court, the “original sin” of the Laporte-Altrad tandem, accused of having sealed a “corruptive pact”: an image contract Concluded for a period of one year, on February 19, 2017, for 180,000 euros (taxes between BL Communication, Mr. Laporte company, and Altrad Investments Authority (AIA), the Holding of the Altrad Group.

According to the financial prosecutor Céline Guillet, this agreement, the principle of which had been ratified in the summer of 2016, before the election of Bernard Laporte at the head of the FFR, placed the latter in a “situation of conflict obvious interests that should have led him to deport all the interventions for the Altrad group as sponsor or the Montpellier club. “

The magistrate recalled that “this secret image contract within the FFR” was not executed after the Sunday Journal revealed it, in the summer of 2017, despite a transfer made to BL Communication in March 2017. It constitutes an “advantage granted in return for decisions favorable to Mr. Altrad”, she stressed between two legal details.

“The quintessence of influence traffic”

Methodically, his colleague François-Xavier DULIN gave the supposed interventions of Bernard LAPORTE “in favor of private interests” of the billionaire, “hen with gold eggs of the FFR”. Among the elements payable is the support displayed by Mr. Laporte to the project, ultimately aborted, to buy back by Mr. Altrad from Parts of the English club Gloucester.

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